The Bristol Post has today surpassed itself in overhyping the Bristol Christmas Market. Not only is the ‘ever popular Jager bar back’, there are other ‘exciting additions’. I’ll bet you can wait to find out what they are! Well, the Post has now given us the news. It’s anything but exciting.
In addition to the overpriced sausages and Diabetes inducing confectionary, the organisers have only secured a Bavarian Curling Station! Laugh? I never started.
Despite my wide knowledge of sports, I had never come across Bavarian Curling. I know about Curling, of course, which is right up there with the most boring sports ever invented, so I decided to ask Mr Google about the Bavarian version. This is what I learned from the GliceRink.com website:
‘2 teams of 4 players compete with each other during a match. Eisstock Curling is a precision game and the goal of the game is to launch the stock as close as possible to the Daube
(a target object set up in the middle of the target field). Each player gets one shot per match and each game consists of 6 rounds.
The target (Daube) may be shifted from its original spot if hit by one of the stocks. This is allowed, as long as the Daube remains in the target field. Should the Daube be pushed out of the target field it must be returned to its original spot.
The team with the stock closest to the Daube wins the game and takes home the Eisstock trophy!’
So, basically Curling, really, although I suspect there may be a liberal interpretation of the rules when the players are drunken Bristolians who have imbibed far too much German lager from proper pubs because the stuff sold at the ‘ever popular Jager Bar’ has the taste of dishwater and the strength of tap water.
Let’s put it this way, the Post’s desperate free publicity for the dire German Market has only encouraged me to stay away and instead have a few drinks in some of the many great pubs in our fair city that serve drinkable beer and edible food.
Do enjoy shoving your Stock at the Daube and I do hope you win your own Eisstock trophy. I’m going to give it a miss and do something interesting instead. And anything will be more interesting than that.
